The Tempting of Thomas Carrick

  Somewhat to his surprise, she made no demur at his taking control; instead, she walked beside him, courtesy of the narrowness of the corridor rather close, her velvet riding skirt brushing the material of his trousers. Once he was sure she was, indeed, consenting to leave the scene, he eased his grip, then released her altogether.

  He would have increased the distance between them, but there was no space.

  Lucilla found herself dealing with a rather odd fracturing of her awareness. On one level, she was increasingly exercised over the matter of the Burns sisters’ deaths, and very conscious of the tug of duty on that score, yet simultaneously her sensual awareness was reveling in Thomas’s nearness. In his touch, however brief.

  The toe of her riding boot hit something, and she stumbled. “Oh!” She pitched forward—

  Thomas caught her and hauled her upright. Hauled her to him.

  She ended in his arms. Locked against him, her palms flat against his chest.

  The first thing she registered was the heat of him, the warmth that seeped through the layers of fabric and sank into her.

  Into her flesh, feeding her senses.

  They came alive on a giddy rush of anticipation.

  She raised her gaze to his eyes. In the same instant registered the sudden tension that had gripped him, that had turned taut, resilient muscle into granite and steel. The arms that held her so securely felt less malleable than iron.

  But it was his eyes that most gave him away; the gold-flecked amber burned.

  She didn’t stop to think. To question.

  To give him time to snap his shields back into place.

  The Lady might help and create the chance, but it was up to her to seize it.

  Stretching up on her toes, she barely paused to whisper “Thank you” before she pressed her lips to his.

  For one instant, her confidence wavered. What if he didn’t respond?

  Then she sensed it—a sharp hitch in his breathing, a leaping, uncontrollable, barely reined impulse to seize.

  She’d felt that reaction in herself—she recognized it in him.

  All doubt evaporated. All caution fell.

  She pressed her kiss on him, sure, certain.

  Stepping boldly into him, she slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, savoring the heat and the strength beneath her palms, then she reached further, to his nape, and slid her fingers into the thick, heavy locks of his hair.

  The feathery touch caught her, steadied her.

  All her senses alive, she turned her mind from conquest to persuasion.

  Drawing one hand from the silk of his hair, she placed her palm against one lean cheek and gave herself over to the communion of the kiss.

  Thomas was lost, his anchor gone, swept away by a tide of ferocious yearning. His, but equally hers. Her longing had poured into him, inciting a response he had no hope of reining back. Of taming. Of restraining.

  He wanted her; he always had.

  But the part of him that wanted her—still, regardless—was the part of him he normally kept leashed, controlled. Hidden.

  It hadn’t been her kiss, the sharp and shocking pressure of her lips against his, that had shattered the chains, that had broken the lock and flung wide the doors of his inner prison.

  It hadn’t been the searing heat of her touch as she’d slid her hands up his chest and over his shoulders, an evocative, provocative come-hither act that yet had felt curiously innocent.

  Even her fingers tangling in his hair—he was more than experienced enough to set all such temptations aside.

  But the feel of her palm, her fingers, lightly riding against his cheek…

  It was as if by that touch she’d tamed him. Slayed all resistance and claimed the man he truly was.

  He’d always known she was dangerous. That she and she alone could rule him.

  He hadn’t wanted that. He still didn’t want that. Yet…

  Her lips tasted of a heady blend of rose and nectar. He couldn’t resist the temptation to sip.

  Just a little. A bit.

  Slowly, inexorably, the muscles in his arms tightened and he gathered her to him. His head bent—whether to his will or hers he didn’t know—but with irresistible expertise, he seized control of the kiss, until then a mere shadow of what, between them, a kiss could be.

  He showed her that reality. With brutal candor, he laid the possibilities bare; as she had started this, he was only too willing to finish it—to tease her as much as her not-so-innocent kiss was teasing him. Parting her lips, he claimed them, then angling his head, he claimed every inch of her mouth, of her tongue, with his. Claimed all the luscious softness and tasted her burgeoning passion.

  Instead of drawing back, as he’d assumed she would, from the deliberate and blatant claiming—from an exchange that, between one heartbeat and the next, had stepped over all acceptable lines straight into ravenous, rapacious need, into barely contained greed—instead of being shocked and pulling back, she pressed closer yet, her breasts flattening against his chest, her nipples hard pearls he felt even through his clothes.

  The heavy ache in his groin intensified.

  The compulsive need he’d always felt for her welled, washed through him, and rode him even harder.

  Slender and supple she might be, all delicate bones and silken limbs, but the fire in her—a nascent blaze as yet, but one formed from elemental passion and desire—was, to him, to the real man within, temptation incarnate.

  Giddy, reckless, consuming, and entirely out of control, the kiss raged, waged—not a war but a clash of desires. Of needs, of wants.

  Not opposing, but melding. Flowing together, twining, and growing.

  Hers intentional, he harbored not a doubt; his undeniable—unable to be denied no matter his wishes.

  He knew they had to stop, to cease and desist before he lost all hope of ever stepping back from her. Of ever letting her go.

  But her hand remained on his cheek, her touch scalding in a way that had nothing to do with heat, effortlessly holding him captive. Holding his senses, snaring them in a net of want from which he couldn’t break free.

  His senses and his mind were literally reeling.

  She seemed to know, to realize.

  But instead of comprehending the danger, pulling back, and letting him go, she reached—with her lips, with her body, with the gentle pressure of her hand on his cheek.

  A sudden clattering clang of hooves on cobbles snapped them both free; on a mutual gasp, both pulled back from the kiss.

  The sharp clatter was followed by shouts and calls.

  For one instant, they remained locked together, gazing into each other’s eyes. Both of them were breathing rapidly. His pulse thudded in his ears.

  Then the calls rising from below hauled them both fully back to the here and now.

  They stepped apart. Side by side, they moved to the window.

  That end of the disused wing overlooked the stable yard. On the cobbles below, they saw Nigel and Nolan, still mounted, their horses dancing, infected by the brothers’ transparently ebullient spirits.

  Nigel had called for the stablemen—that had been the summons Thomas and Lucilla had heard—but Sean, Mitch, and Fred were taking their time.

  Thomas watched as the stablemen slowly ambled across the yard and—it seemed grudgingly—held Nigel’s and Nolan’s horses. Apparently oblivious to the almost sullen disapprobation radiating from their clansmen, the brothers continued exchanging comments with each other as they dismounted, then haphazardly flung their reins toward the stablemen and started toward the house.

  There were no greetings exchanged between the stablemen and the young masters of the house. As far as Thomas could see, there hadn’t even been any true acknowledgment of each other—a remarkable contrast to when he’d ridden in.

  Frowning, he stepped back from the window. Less than a second’s thought sufficed to suggest that making his presence known to Nigel sooner rather than later would serve everyone, Man
achan especially, best.

  He looked at Lucilla. She was still gazing down at the stable yard, at the stablemen leading the horses away. Even though he couldn’t see her eyes, from her pensive, assessing expression it was clear that she’d detected the strain between the two groups of men and, like him, found it curious.

  “I should go and break the news to Nigel.” He took another step back. When she turned to look at him, he pointed over his shoulder at the door just along the corridor. “That’s the door to the gallery in the main wing.” Briefly, he met her gaze. “I’ll see you later.”

  He didn’t wait to see if she would reply; he turned on his heel, strode to the door, and escaped.

  Lucilla watched him go. He left the door ajar; whether he’d meant to or not, it was a clear invitation to follow. Which she fully intended to do.

  The kiss…had been everything she’d wanted. Even more than she’d dreamed of. But now Nigel and Nolan had arrived, such personal matters had to be set aside—for the moment. Until later.

  With the prospects for later flitting through her mind, she stepped out—and felt something catch beneath her boot heel, nearly tripping her again.

  She halted, stepped aside, and looked down. A ripple in the runner along the edge closest to the window was the obstacle. Frowning, she glanced back at the stairs. “Could that be what Faith tripped over?” But the stairs were too far away for even the most uncoordinated person to have tripped there, and then reeled far enough to have fallen down the stairs.

  Lucilla humphed. In the interests of safety, she attempted to use the toe of her boot to flatten the runner—and realized there was something beneath it. Something solid.

  Crouching, she lifted the edge of the runner—and uncovered a short length of candle.

  “So that’s where it went.” Picking up the length—the top broken from a longer candle—she smoothed back the runner. She was about to rise when the oddity of a piece of candle with no candleholder struck her. “And clearly the staff didn’t come this far when they tidied up.”

  She glanced to left and right. Two low bureaus were set against the walls between the windows; their knob-like legs held them three inches off the floor.

  She sighed, got down on her knees, then bent until her head was almost on the dusty floor, and looked beneath the bureaus.

  The candleholder, a simple pewter one, was underneath the bureau to her left. Peeling back her jacket sleeve, she reached and hooked the holder out; it still contained the stub of the candle.

  Getting back to her feet, the candleholder in one hand and the broken piece of candle in the other, she briefly studied both, then looked down the corridor. The head of the stairs was a good twenty feet away.

  Puzzled, she set candleholder and candle on the top of the bureau. For a long moment, she stared at them. Then, beneath her breath, she murmured, “I can think of only one way that you ended up here, while Faith fell down the stairs all the way over there.”

  Her theory was increasingly looking like fact—far more like fact than she liked.

  A distant rumble of voices reminded her that she had an imminent meeting she wanted to witness.

  She turned and headed for the door to the gallery.

  CHAPTER 6

  The thick runner on the main stairs muted Lucilla’s footsteps as she hurried down to the ground floor.

  Thomas had already walked into the front hall. The rumble of male voices she’d heard had come from Nigel and Nolan when they’d opened the front door, but they’d paused on the porch, laughing at some joke; as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the pair pushed the front door wide and strolled in.

  Intensely curious, she slipped unseen from the bottom of the stairs, keeping close to the newel post so that the side of the archway between the front hall and the stairway hall screened her from the three men.

  Halting in the lee of the archway, she risked a quick peek. Thomas had halted just a few steps into the hall; he stood with his back to her, waiting for his cousins. She caught only a glimpse of Nigel and Nolan before they were blocked from her view by Thomas’s shoulders, but they looked startled to discover Thomas there. Their laughter had cut off abruptly; the silence that followed lasted long enough to feel strained.

  She’d seen Nigel and Nolan here and there over the years. Nigel was a few inches shorter than Thomas, but of more barrel-like build—a younger Manachan, in that respect. He had brown hair, a redder, lighter brown than Thomas’s, and his complexion was ruddier, his features less refined. Some ladies might consider him ruggedly handsome, but in an aggressive, pugilistic fashion.

  Nolan was of similar height, but slighter build, with fair hair loosely flopping over his brow. Finer boned, he seemed to exist in Nigel’s shadow, a lesser man not just physically but also in personality; Nolan watched while Nigel acted.

  Tilting her head, she waited to hear where the encounter would lead.

  “Cuz,” Nigel finally said. “What are you doing here?”

  No hello, hail-fellow-well-met, or similar family greeting—in fact, no greeting at all. She tried to imagine any of her cousins greeting each other like that, and simply couldn’t.

  Thomas replied, his tone even, “I was summoned.”

  Even as the words left his lips, Thomas realized just what in the situation had been bothering him all along. Why the devil had Bradshaw, let alone Forrester, applied to him—far distant in Glasgow—and not to Nigel, the acting-laird? Regardless of whatever was going on, it was Nigel’s responsibility to deal with it, a fact Manachan had confirmed. Which meant that the clansmen appealing to Thomas was a deliberate declaration of their lack of confidence in Nigel’s leadership.

  The scene in the stable yard seemed to bear out that conclusion; the clan didn’t approve of Nigel.

  From the way Nigel bristled, he already knew that. His “Oh?” was laden with rising aggression.

  Thomas had no time for cousinly tantrums. “The Bradshaw family was taken violently ill—all of them, the children included. Why others insisted on sending for me, I have no clue, although I assume it’s connected to the reason Bradshaw appealed to me about the situation with the seed supply.” He paused, holding Nigel’s gaze. “You recall I mentioned that when we met in Glasgow. As you’ve been in Ayr, am I to take it you’ve resolved the issue?”

  Nigel looked uncomfortable but quickly sought refuge in a scowl. “I’m dealing with it, as I said I would.”

  Defensive dismissiveness laced his tone.

  Thomas had no wish to engage in hostilities; despite being heir to the lairdship, Nigel had always resented the somewhat different relationship Thomas enjoyed with Manachan. Thomas had known that, on finding him at the manor, Nigel would see him as intruding on his turf. As for Nolan, who was standing to the side and watching the exchange unfold, Thomas had no doubt over where his loyalties lay; Nolan had always been fiercely supportive of Nigel and protective of Nigel’s dignity.

  “In that case,” Thomas went on, “as you are now back and able to resume the duties of laird, you need to know…” Succinctly, he told them of Joy Burns’s death, and of her sister’s death on the very same night. He reported briefly on the recovery of the Bradshaws, courtesy of Lucilla’s intervention, and concluded with Manachan’s invitation to Lucilla to remain at Carrick Manor to oversee the transferring of the healer’s duties to Joy’s apprentice.

  Nigel blinked. Nolan frowned. Both had shown surprise on hearing of Joy’s and Faith’s deaths, but Thomas detected no evidence of real concern, much less sorrow, even though, far more consistently than he, the pair had known the Burns sisters all their lives.

  After a long moment, still frowning, Nolan glanced at Nigel, then said, “I still don’t understand, cuz, why you didn’t simply send a message. Nigel would have seen the Bradshaws dealt with.”

  Thomas hung on to his temper. “As it happened, I had reason to speak with Manachan—and I’m shocked that he’s been allowed to sink to his present state. But that aside, as to the Bradsha
ws, in case you’ve already forgotten, Nigel wasn’t here. You were both in Ayr and not here to consult.” He had to wonder what they’d been doing in the seaside town, but now was patently not the time to inquire.

  Nolan shrugged negligently. “I don’t know why you think you need to concern yourself with Papa—you don’t. And the matter with the Bradshaws couldn’t have been that urgent. They could have waited.”

  “As a matter of fact, they couldn’t.” Lucilla chose that moment to walk out from the stairway hall.

  Thomas suspected she’d been lurking there for some time; since Nigel and Nolan had walked into the front hall, his nerves had been flickering in the way they did whenever she was near.

  The effect of her appearance on his cousins was nothing short of shock—if she’d slapped them, she couldn’t have stunned them more.

  “Good afternoon, Nigel.” Lucilla halted beside Thomas and inclined her head, first to Nigel, then Nolan. She saw no reason to offer them her hand; after hearing what they’d said, she didn’t wish to encourage them even that far.

  Both stared at her. Their expressions were not so much blank as suggestive of a medley of largely suppressed emotions.

  She stared back at them, then, raising her chin slightly, she allowed the hauteur she’d learned from her grandmother to seep into her eyes.

  Nigel belatedly remembered his manners. He bowed rather stiffly. “Miss Cynster.”

  Nolan inclined his head and echoed the words.

  “Regarding the Bradshaws.” She paused to confirm that she had the pair’s full attention. “If your cousin had not gone to the farmhouse when he did, found Joy Burns dying and immediately fetched me as he did, if we hadn’t discovered that the well was tainted and he hadn’t fetched fresh water, the Bradshaws almost certainly would have died, and anyone who arrived to help them and who drank their water would have fallen severely ill, as well.”

  She’d caught and held Nigel’s gaze. She continued to hold it mercilessly. “You were not here to act for your clansmen. Thomas was, and did. As acting-laird, you owe him thanks, although your father has already proffered his.”